AAP convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday said that neither the BJP nor the Congress talked about education during their respective tenures in the national capital while asserting that his government’s politics is solely dependent on educating children. He made the remarks at the inauguration of a new building of a government school in west Delhi’s Uttam Nagar.
“This school was constructed in 1985. The governments of (BJP and Congress) came to power. But education was not on their agenda. “Neither the BJP nor the Congress spoke about providing education. But our politics is dependent on education,” the chief minister said.
He said his government is just the “means to educate children”, adding “probably God was waiting for the AAP to come to power and improve the condition of schools”. “Earlier, girls used to have this feeling that they were going to government schools while their brothers studied in private schools. But now the government schools in Delhi are providing good education. Some more government buildings are left to be renovated,” he said.
Speaking about the challenges ahead, Kejriwal said since the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is in power in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), it wants to improve the condition of 1,800 schools of the civic body. “We want that the students get good education from class 1 onwards. We will also improve the MCD schools in the next five years,” he added.
The chief minister also opined that the biggest challenge is to not find any employment after completing one’s education. “If one does not get a job after completing education, there is no use of this education. We have to focus on each and every student of classes 11 and 12, and we are preparing them to do business through the Business Blasters initiative,” he said.
Earlier in the morning, Education Minister Atishi trained her guns at both the L-G and Prime Minister Narendra Modi as she subtly renewed the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) “fourth class pass King” rhetoric against Modi. Taking to Twitter on Monday to share an invite to the inauguration of a school that the chief minister is scheduled to inaugurate in West Delhi’s Uttam Nagar, Atishi said Saxena was welcome to the event to “take credit.”
Hours after the inauguration, Atishi held a press conference and took a dig at Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena for not attending the event despite being invited. Her comments also come in the backdrop of sloganeering at the inaugural event of the newly built campus of Indraprastha University in east Delhi last week where Kejriwal and Saxena were both present.